Mmm, meat.

November 28th, 2007, 2:34 pm

Bill Buford’s cookbook review in the New Yorker looks at three new books that deal exclusively with meat. These authors–a food writer, a chef, and a butcher–know their subject intimately, and along with Buford, it seems, harbor a hope that the rest of us will one day follow suit.

But in many states, federal regulations are making small-scale meat production a large-scale hassle, like in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a couple of farmers were arrested and had their farm raided for selling uninspected pork at a farmers market.

While New York magazine , in its response to Buford’s article, doesn’t see the point of trying to “reconcile meat with virtue,” reconciling our relationship with meat might be better seen as a responsibility, virtuous or not. At Chefs Collaborative, we advocate for purchasing meat from sustainable sources. Through our work on the project to Renew America’s Food Traditions (RAFT), we raise awareness about at-risk livestock breeds that chefs have a role in bringing back from the brink of extinction–by connecting with producers, learning how to break down whole animals, and challenging their skills to transform as much of the animal as possible into good food that restaurant guests will want to eat.

While working this way might seem risky, the bigger risk is not bothering to try–and being left with an option that makes less and less sense as the argument against industrial meat productionmounts. “Good meat comes only from a good animal,” writes Buford. And good animals are raised humanely. It’s a system that deserves support–even if the motivation is gustatory.